Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

As 2024 comes to a close, many of us look forward to the chance to switch off and recharge. However, we recognise that the Steering Group has been working hard for us with training sessions and helping with fundraising efforts.

Kym Oliver represents us at Women’s Budget Group report launch

Kym Oliver is part of the Sisters of Frida Steering Group and represented us at the recent Women’s Budget Group report launch. Here is the video, with embedded captions:

“Whatever is happening to the folks who live at the most marginalised intersection, that’s a representation of where your nation is actually at.”

Kym is also a Co-Founder of Our Living Archives and a PhD Researcher at City University. Thank you to Our Living Archives for this footage.

The Women’s Budget Group report is ‘Where do we go from here? An intersectional analysis of women’s living standards since 2010‘.

Tumu Johnson speaks to UNECE

In the meantime, Tumu Johnson, one of our directors, was at the UNECE Beijing +30 Civil Society Forum in Geneva 19-20 October 2024, organised by the NGO Committee on the Status of Women as a service to the women and girls in the UNECE region.

She was interviewed for ‘Best Practices and Vision for the Future’, as part of Sisters of Frida, alongside representatives from other specialist organisations and international organisations working on diverse issues, to share what has worked across the region.

You Are My Net – abridged, Anon

During this festive season, we hope you can take out some time, whether during a coffee break or while on annual leave, to look back on your accomplishments from 2024. 

Here is an article we hope resonates with you, in the season when so many of us are alone and lonely, to enjoy the festivities associated with it:

Every time I have a hard day, a situation, or an emergency, I have friends I can go to. Recently, it struck me that this wasn’t always the case. There were times way back when I didn’t have someone I could trust and talk to, who would help or want to. This is a position a lot of disabled people experience at some point in their lives. I worry about people I meet who don’t talk about friends, because though they may be happiest in their own company, they may not have someone who will notice when something’s wrong, or to turn to for advice.

There are times when this has made a huge difference in how a situation plays out, and this safety net is incredibly valuable to me.

And yet… We are so far apart. We hope that each other are OK rather than directly observing this ourselves. The narrower the bands of communication, the fewer signs we can use to understand how each other are doing. It takes time to learn the signs for each person, and it can be very unique to the individual. Impairments can dictate which bands are available to us, and the need for privacy can reduce these options, for example if you wish to communicate without being overheard, you may choose to use a messaging platform. Neurodivergence can also change which bands work best – I personally learn what changes in people’s voices mean far faster and more reliably than their facial expressions.

There’s a lot that I learned late that would have been useful earlier. Here’s some ideas for you to use if you wish:

1. Open the different communication bands as wide as possible. In person can offer facial expression, tone of voice, posture and gestures, clothing and jewelry (anyone else have an “I’m sad” t-shirt?), word choice, laughter and humming and silences and signs of joy or exhaustion like dark circles or tapping feet. Messaging can be great for saving some spoons, but traveling to meet in person when practical creates a stronger net, and means you know where you’re going if they need you, or you need them.
2. Learn your friends care needs, or those you can, and spend time letting others know yours. Remove as many barriers to spending time alone together, making sure that there’s space for topics and communication to be private whenever you both want this. This could be as simple as giving your home phone number to a friend so that they can call a PA in the next room for you when needed, or as critical as learning how to use an emergency med like an Epipen.
3. Practice getting comfortable asking others to leave the room and close the door for phone and video calls. Making this a standard practice will mean that nobody finds it suspicious that you’re asking for privacy in the event that you’re asking for support or making an emergency call about yourself or someone else.
4. Get a headset or earbuds, and get some for your friends. This will reduce the chance of your friend’s side of the conversation being overheard, meaning that even if you are in the same room as someone else, you can still have a semi-private conversation. This will make your friends feel more comfortable to speak with you openly, and in the event of an emergency, you can safely hear the other person and answer questions with a new code.
5. Use a separate digital device to others around you, and have separate digital accounts from others. Do not give your passwords to anyone. This means that emails and messages can be private, meaning your friends can share things with you confidentially and you with them and beyond, including sources of help, support, and advice. Sharing devices and passwords can mean that others can check your search history, messages, emails, and files.
6. Set up code words with trusted friends that let them know something is wrong, and what to do. “Do you want to come over for pasta bake tonight?” as an agreed code for “I need you to come over quickly”. Creating your own codes will let trusted friends know what’s going on without the code becoming known to someone who you may need assistance to get away from, or let them reach out to you for help when they don‘t have privacy. Be creative.
7. Make sure your friends know what level of privacy you have on each platform and each time. This will mean that they will know when it’s OK to talk about sensitive topics with you – and not get you into avoidable awkward
   situations.
8. Get into a rhythm. Got a friend who usually calls you twice a month hasn’t called for 2 months, and keeps saying sorry but not saying why? That could be a sign that something’s not OK.
9. Build your net. Find people you enjoy being around and trust and can rely on. This article was written with the help of 4 other people, all of whom I would trust in an emergency.
10. Talk about safety with everyone you want to be safe. Add your own ideas to this list. Ask others for their tips. Put them out there for others to find.

We have to build a net. You are my net.

Seasonal Greetings from the Sisters of Frida team…